Chapter 31

My Wednesday morning started off as any other day, then turn to doo-doo as I sat in the barbers chair and Clem filled me in on the happenings from the night before.

“Your pal, George Howard has done it again,” Clem said off-handedly.

News of George Howard was something I wanted to hear, so I asked Clem for the details.

“Seems George came back to town unexpectedly yesterday, and caught his pretty little señorita all cuddled up with some vaquero over at Rosa’s last night. Word is that he beat them both damn near to death. Sheriff’s over at the courthouse now, trying to get a warrant, but we all know how that’s going to turn out.”

The news parlayed by Clem made me so mad I almost blacked out. I leaped out of his chair, grabbed a towel to wipe my face and dashed headlong out of his shop. Old Clem was going to have a new tale to tell his next customer I reckoned.

I fast walked down to Rosa’s and pounded on the door until a sleepy eyed young woman opened it a crack. When she saw it was me, she opened the door and pointed at the staircase.

“Second room on the right,” was all she said.

I went up the stairs three at a time, found the right room and knocked lightly on the door. A muffled voice from within told me to go away. Well, that wasn’t even an option, so I twisted the knob and pushed open the door with enough velocity to almost rip it from its hinges.

Feleena was lying propped up on some pillows as Rosa applied a cold rag to her bruised face. I walked over to the bed as Feleena and Rosa both looked relieved that it was me. I knelt down by the bed and looked at Feleena’s face, my anger a seething cauldron of unvented spleen.

“How badly are you hurt?” I asked softly.

Feleena looked into my eyes and something in hers had changed. Gone was the hard appraising look she usually reserved for me. In its place was a vulnerability I’d never seen before.

“It is nothing serious, nothing broken, anyway. He mostly slapped me around while he was pummeling the cowboy I was with. Rosa finally made him leave by threatening him with a shotgun. When you burst through the door, we were scared it was him coming back to finish us both off as he threatened to do last night.”

I nodded my head in understanding and turned my attention to Rosa.

“I do not believe Howard will show himself for a few days, his father will see to that. Just in case, though, I will ask the sheriff to station a deputy here for tonight. Tomorrow I will go out and deal with Howard myself.”

Rosa thanked me, handed me the damp cloth and left the room. I took the chair Rosa vacated and gently brushed Feleena’s hair back off her face. I almost fell off the chair when Feleena took my hand and kissed my palm.

“I have tried so very hard not to let you into my heart, Hombre, but you have made that thing very difficult. I thought Jorge was the answer to making me forget about you, but the more time I spent with him, the more I compared him to you. Last night I told him that he and I were through. That’s when he went crazy and started beating me and the poor man who was sitting with me.”

I sat with Feleena for another hour. During that hour, I told her about the way things were in my life right now, but how I still felt she should be part of it. It was a lot for a person with her ego to swallow, but to her credit, she didn’t dismiss the idea outright. When I left, she begged me to be careful and not to trust George Howard even a little bit. She was, as my Abuela use to say, “Predicando al coro” ... she was preaching to the choir.

I was considerably calmer as I walked the four blocks down to the sheriff’s office. Matt Faulkner was there, sitting behind his desk scowling. I plopped down in his side chair and pulled out a cheroot for each of us from my vest pocket. The thin, smelly, cheap stogies came from Clem the barber. I sort of liked them because they had a surprisingly mild and sweet taste. Of course the women in my life didn’t appreciate them or their stink even a little, so my opportunities to fire one up were limited.

I struck a sulfur match on the bottom of my chair and lit his cheroot, then lit mine. Neither of us said anything for a couple of minutes, as the blue smoke from the cigars wafted up towards the ceiling. Finally, Matt leaned back in his chair and gave a small sigh.

“No warrant, of course, Judge Howard almost laughed in my face when I asked for one. Still, if you go after him, it will have to be for justice and not vengeance, else wise you’ll be the same as him,” Faulkner said philosophically.

I nodded my agreement.

“That’s why I’m here, Matt. I am going to execute the Federal warrant tomorrow morning and I need to raise a posse.”

We jawboned a plan of sorts, shook hands and I headed off to find Belle. I didn’t have a clue as to how she would take either piece of news I had to give her. I caught up with her at the El Paso Hotel and explained everything to her over lunch. She listened attentively and then confounded me with her reaction.

“We’ll worry about Feleena, later. Right now you need to concentrate on George Howard. The only thing I want you to promise me is that you’ll be careful. If that sorry snake in the grass even blinks, shoot him, no questions asked.”

How could I not love a woman like that?

The jangling bells on top of my alarm clock woke me up the next morning at six-thirty. Before I could reach over and lock down the clapper, Belle mumbled something irritably and elbowed me in the side. Belle was not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination.

I throttled the clock, hopped out of bed and threw on a pair of my Levis. After a quick trip to the bathroom, I finished dressing, kissed snoozing Belle on the forehead and shot out the door. I stopped by the kitchen and choked down a couple of biscuits and a cup of coffee. Molly tsk-tsk’d about me eating and running, but she gave me a kiss and sent me on my way.

I was at the stables slinging my old saddle onto Melosa’s back when two of the Sheriff’s other auxiliary deputies walked in. None of the other auxiliaries wanted to ride with me when I went to the Lazy H to execute my warrant. As a federal officer, I could have compelled them to go with me, but I didn’t want anyone with me who didn’t want to be there.

I greeted the men and we shook hands, then I went back to cinching up Melosa’s saddle. About five minutes later, Pedro Diaz and another vaquero joined us. Pedro’s buddy was a good sized Navajo Indian named Homer Bearclaw. According to Pedro, Bearclaw was the best tracker and deadliest rifle shot in this part of the country. I told the big man that I appreciated having someone with those skills with us. And of course, I couldn’t resist adding that it also made me feel better riding with the world’s greatest vaquero.

Bearclaw just grunted, but Pedro replied that, “Yes, you are lucky indeed.”

Right as we were mounting up to leave the stables, Matt Faulkner rode up. I cocked my eyebrows at him inquisitively and he shrugged his shoulders.

“I decided that there weren’t no warrant going to be served in my county, - unless I went along to see that it was done proper like.”

I grinned at that, knowing it was just an excuse for him to be part of the posse.

It took us about an hour to cover the six miles out to the archway gate that announced we were at the Lazy H. The spread was so large, it took us another twenty minutes to reach the big ranch house complex. I stopped us on a small bluff about a quarter of a mile from the buildings and looked the place over. For a working ranch, the place was eerily quiet. That in itself was a tip off that something might be afoot. I asked Homer Bearclaw to cover us while we rode up to the hacienda. Homer nodded and pulled a Model 1876 Winchester .50 caliber lever action rifle out of his scabbard. I swear, the hole in the end of the barrel of that thing looked as big as a silver dollar.

I left one of the deputies with Homer to watch our backs and rode down to the house with the other three men. No one answered me when I hailed the house, but a minute later a man came out of the bunkhouse toting a shotgun. I wheeled Melosa sideways, pulled my right hand pistol and put two bullets in the ground next to the man’s right foot. He dropped the shotgun as if it were a rattlesnake and threw his hands in the air.

“Don’t shoot me mister,” he pleaded.

Before I could reply, Homer’s cannon roared behind us. By now, everyone had their pistols drawn and were trying to keep control of their horses. I looked back up the hill and saw Homer point to the side of the bunkhouse with his rifle. Since Pedro was the closest to that side of the bunkhouse, I motioned him towards it with my pistol, while I eased over towards the other end of the building. I had both pistols out by now, and guided Melosa with my knees. Melosa sidestepped nicely as I kept my eyes and pistols pointed at the corner of the building.

I stopped Melosa when I saw the shadowed silhouette of a man just around the corner.

“You beside the building, drop your weapon and come out with your hands up, or prepare to eat lead,” I hollered.

That line was straight out of the script from the Sagebrush Wild West Show, but it seemed to fit the moment. After a couple of seconds, a rifle flew out from the side of the building and landed in the dirt. I almost laughed as I saw the shadow of a man with a pistol standing right around the corner. I aimed about where I thought his knee was and put a bullet into the corner of the building. There was a yelp of pain and the shadow disappeared.

“The pistol too, you idiot,” I yelled.

When the pistol landed in the dirt near the rifle, I dismounted and walked a wide arc until I could see around the corner. I motioned the man lying on the ground to get on his feet. He cautiously complied, still holding onto his wounded thigh. I had him limp out into the open, then sat him down while I checked his leg. The fellow had a nice grazing flesh wound on the inside of his right thigh, but it was nothing very serious. I finished fastening the manacles around his wrists, just as Pedro dragged a man’s body from the other side of the building. The man was beyond dead, as Homer had removed most of his brains with one of those huge fifty caliber slugs.